Then Venerable Mahākassapa addressed the monks: “On one occasion, as I was traveling from Pāvā to Kusināra with a large sangha of five hundred monks, I left the road and sat down at the foot of a tree. Just then a follower of the Ājīvakas was traveling toward Pāvā on the same road, holding a coral-tree flower that he had picked up in Kusināra. When I saw him coming, I asked him, ‘Do you know anything about our Teacher?’ ‘I do. Today it’s seven days since the ascetic Gotama attained final extinguishment. That’s why I carry this coral-tree flower.’ Some of the monks there who were not yet free from desire threw up their arms and cried, collapsed on the ground, and rolled back and forth, lamenting, ‘The Buddha, the Happy One, has attained final extinguishment too soon—too soon has the eye of the world been put out!’ But the monks there who were free from desire bore it with mindfulness and full awareness, saying, ‘All phenomena are impermanent. How could it be any different?’